What Is Your Strength? What Is Your Calling?

Posted on May 26, 2015

What is your strength?

What’s going to be that one thing, that no matter the circumstance or situation, will keep you going?

There have been many times I have felt like my back was right up against the wall – like I had no room to move and that the weight of everything was weighing me down. I felt cornered. I felt stuck. I felt, moment by moment, that the walls were closing in on me. I’ve had to claw and scratch my way out a few times just to get back to a place where I could start to figure things out. I know what that is like – being in a situation where your heart is telling you one thing but you logically have convinced yourself that you must make another decision. I know what it’s like to push things into a “deal with this later” pile. But that creates a significant amount of conflict in your life, and in time, those things always come back to push on you when you least expect it. You have to have something that will move you deep at your core – a reason, a belief – that will help you continue on when things get really hard.

When it’s really coming down on you…endure.

Sometimes, all you have to do is keep going. You have to endure the worst to get to the other side. Life will throw hell at you – I promise you that. As much as you try to create your reality by being happy & positive etc, you have no control over the wondrous ways of life. It will, for no reason at all, tear you apart and chew you to bits. Sometimes it has a great reason, but were not talking about karma here. No, I’m just talking about the uncontrollable aspects of what really happens. Life will life you. Oh and it’s good at it too.

So what is your strength?

What’s going to be that one thing that you can go to when you have nothing left in the tank? There will be times when you are functioning on nothing but pure will and faith. I’ve been there a few times. It’s a place of “I have absolutely nothing left in me…but I’m going to keep trying. I’m going to keep trying because I know there is light on the other side even though I can’t see it now.”

For me, I’ve always focused on one thing when times get hard – resilience. The ability to stand strong, bounce back, or just refuse to accept the option of laying down when things are difficult.

Resilience, deep and true resilience, is my fail safe. It’s my backup to all my other backups. It’s what I know I can absolutely go to when everything starts to fall apart. Has that happened? Yes, more times than I enjoyed. But did it teach me to stand in any storm when things get tough – absolutely, and for that I know I can withstand just about anything.

You won’t break. You won’t shatter…but you may crack a bit. Don’t worry, cracks showing up are a sign that you are taking a significant amount of stress but refuse to break apart. Endure it. Keep going. Don’t stop. When all of the motivation in the world can’t get you to continue moving forward, go to that place of resilience.

This place doesn’t always look flowery. In fact, it rarely is. This place is the place where every horrible situation you’ve ever gone through lives. While it’s a place where those memories live, it’s also a place where “I’ve made it through hell and I can make it through this.”

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” | Eleanor Roosevelt

You can take the next thing that comes along. Trust me, despite the pain and discomfort you are going through when being tested, you are capable of more than you can imagine. The human spirit is an awfully hard thing to destroy. Like Roosevelt says above…”You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

So push a little bit harder. Give a little bit more effort. Yes, everything may seem like it’s working against you right now, but you can continue to give as much as you possibly can. Leave nothing on the table. Because when you do, you can live a life without regret. To me, that’s more valuable than anything else.

Evan Sanders is a professional life coach, writer, and diehard encourager. He works with people all around the world through his life coaching practice AYKME and has dedicated his life to continuing a journey of personal development and adventure.

Sometimes I don’t think you even know you have this strength inside you until you are in that corner and you surprise yourself with your own true power to continue to survive. I know I’ve gotten to points where if I can just survive through it, I know I will rebuild and thrive. I’ve bit that bottom spot way to many times than I’d like to admit.